A Call to Arms

by P. G. Nagle

  “He’s alive,” cried the doctor, his hand on Peters’s wrist. He moved to Denning. “They’re both alive!”

  The miners exclaimed at the miracle. O’Brien, leaning against the table, smiled as the doctor tore open the Georgian’s shirt to search for his wound. He found none, no mark on either man save for a red spot on his chest. The duelists got to their feet, looked at each other in wonder, then turned their eyes to O’Brien.

  “There, now,” he said, folding his long arms. “It’s settled the way it began, with nothing but a lot of hot air.”

  The spectators burst into laughter, and the faces of the late contenders dawned with the understanding that they’d been betrayed. The New Jersian grabbed his second by the collar. “P-powder,” said the man between gasps of laughter. “Red said t’use powder only!”

  “Ah, leave him alone, Peters,” said O’Brien. “Didn’t you agree to fight by my rules?”

  “O’Brien, you bastard,” said Denning, but a grin of relief broke across his face.

  “I’d be a bastard indeed if I let you make Mary a widow over such nonsense,” said O’Brien.

  Denning laughed, blushing, and shook hands with Peters. Both men claimed they’d been knocked down by the force of the powder rather than by fear. The company, having had their fill of conflict for the moment, heartily agreed, and as one turned to Dooney demanding liquor.

  O’Brien helped the mortified doctor to his feet, saying “Don’t be embarrassed. You’ll still have your fee.”

  The doctor glowered as he picked up his coat and bag. “My gun has bullets in it,” he said, heading for the door.

  O’Brien dismissed him with a shrug and made his way up to the wooden plank where the taverner served the drinks. Behind it, hidden by a curtain made of flour sacks, was the hole—someone’s old false start of a mine—where Dooney concocted his liquors.

  “Clever work, Red,” said Dooney, pouring home-made whiskey into a glass. “This one’s on me.”

  “Sweet Jesus bless you, Dooney,” said O’Brien. He picked up the glass and, accepting congratulations and back-slappings, retired to a stump in a corner of the tavern.

  He was tired. The duel had been only a moment’s escape from the hard truths of life. He sat with his back to the wall and nursed his liquor with the careful avarice of one trapped in toil and poverty. Another long day in the mine had brought nothing; the vein which had promised an end to his struggles had faded like a will-o-wisp of a summer’s dawn. It was almost as hopeless as Ireland.

  New York had been better. There’d been money enough for his efforts, though the work had been low. But a dock hand, a bricklayer, teamster or carrier; none of them could hope to rise in the world as he wished to do. New York thought the Irish scarcely better than Negroes.

  The way O’Brien saw it, if he must work like a slave it might as well be all for his own benefit, so when the siren call of gold had reached the city from Colorado, he had answered. Gold had promised an end forever to poverty. Gold had charmed him to come west and sink all he had into a claim in the high, blue-white mountains.

  And now here he was, starving at the feet of those beautiful mountains. Gold he had found, but in dribs and drabs rather than floods, and what he had mined the first summer had been drained away by a long, harsh winter. Now, in May, snow still lay on the ground in dirty heaps and the air in his mine was bitter cold. With the last of his savings spent on candles and shot, a shadow of despair had begun to creep over him.

  “Evening, Red,” said a familiar voice above his head. “That was a mighty fine trick.”

  O’Brien looked up at a fur-trimmed buckskin coat and the grinning, tanned face above it. “Joseph Hall, if it isn’t the Devil,” he said. “And here I was thinking you’d gone back to Mobile.”

  “Not a step past St. Louis,” said Hall. “Buy you a drink?”

  “Now I’m sure you’re not the Devil,” O’Brien answered, matching his grin. “You’re a bloody saint, that’s what you are.”

  Hall laughed, upended a crate for a table, and tossed down his saddlebag on it. “Stay there, I’ve got something to show you.”

  O’Brien watched him saunter through the crowd to the bar. On a fine day the previous summer he had nearly shot Hall in the woods, mistaking him for a deer. The command of foul language Hall had shown on that occasion was enough to earn even the roughest Irishman’s respect, and thereafter they’d killed many a buck and not a few bottles of whiskey together.

  Then in autumn Hall had decided to become a trade merchant, and disappeared eastward with a crew of ruffians and a wagon train loaded with buffalo hides. O’Brien had not thought he’d see him again.

  Returning from the bar with two glasses, Hall handed one to O’Brien and dragged up a stump to the table. He set down his own glass, pulled a newspaper from his coat and spread it out on the crate. O’Brien ignored it, his attention reserved for the whiskey, which by its golden color was the genuine spirit, and not the drug-based concoction the taverner usually served. Hall must have fetched it back from Missouri for Dooney. O’Brien sipped, and savored the mellow fire on his tongue.

  “Have a look at this,” said Hall, pointing to the newspaper. O’Brien glanced at the meaningless print, anger flaring, and raised flat eyes to stare at Hall.

  “Oh,” said Hall. “Sorry, I forgot.”

  O’Brien filled his mouth with whiskey and let it burn all down his throat. Easy for Hall to forget what he’d taken for granted all his life. Never mind, never mind.

  “It’s about President Lincoln,” said Hall. “He’s called for seventy-five thousand volunteers. I think we ought to sign up.”

  “Soldiering’s worse than mining,” said O’Brien.

  “Three squares a day and a new Enfield rifle?”

  “It’s no better than slavery.”

  “Well, you’re wrong there,” said Hall, “but I’ll make allowances for your lack of firsthand knowledge. What matters, Red me lad, is that a soldier can rise from the ranks.”

  “In a blue moon,” said O’Brien. “My father was a soldier, and he died a private after twenty years.”

  Hall sat back and gazed at him. O’Brien ignored him and took another slow, savoring sip of whiskey.

  “I am disappointed in you, Red,” said Hall. “I thought you had a sense of adventure.”

  “Adventure, is it?” said O’Brien, setting his glass on the table and holding it to the uneven surface with one hand. “Am I to leave my mine for the first bloody claim jumper who wants it? Am I to walk five hundred miles to Leavenworth, with Indians trying to shoot me and scalp me, and all for the honor of being killed in somebody else’s argument?”

  “It’s not just somebody’s argument, it’s a rebellion!” said Hall. “Red, this country’s going to war, do you know what that means?”

  “Means a lot of poor beggars’ll get poorer.”

  “It means some men are bound for glory! Men who can lead others, who can run a good fight and win it, they’ll rise like the blazing sun. Doesn’t matter where they started, do you see?”

  O’Brien looked hard at him, trying to decide if he mocked. Hall liked his jokes, and he knew of O’Brien’s dreams.

  “You could be one of them, Red,” said Hall. “You could be a colonel, a general even. Then all those fine gentlemen would be bowing to you.”

  “Generals don’t rise from the ranks,” said O’Brien, “and how am I fit to become one? I don’t know about armies, or tactics—”

  “You can learn those things,” said Hall, his eyes aglow. “And they’re not as important as courage. That’s what counts in a war, and you’ve got it, my boy!”

  O’Brien heard the echo of a siren’s call. He wanted to believe Hall, believe he could rise in this way, above the past, above the contempt of his betters, far above ever having to grub in the dirt for a living. He saw a ghost of himself, mounted on a mighty war-horse, metal glinting on his shoulders and in his hand, the roar of the battle in his ears.

  “
‘Tis a pretty dream,” said O’Brien slowly, “but that’s all it is. I’m not throwing away what I have to go chase it.”

  Hall was silent, staring at O’Brien with eyes gone cold all of a sudden. Then he reached for his whiskey and downed it in one pull.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, setting down the glass with a graceful flick of his wrist. O’Brien could almost see the lace cuff, the cavalier’s sword, the plumed hat that would so suit Hall’s brow. It was at such moments that he felt the great difference between them. Hall was a gentleman by virtue of life-long training, and O’Brien admired and envied him for it.

  Hall got up, took his saddlebag, and walked away without another word. It was like him, the sudden withdrawal. He’d be back, perhaps, cheerful as ever, but heaven knew when.

  O’Brien looked down at the newspaper Hall had left behind, touched it with his fingertips. Had he been too suspicious? Had good fortune been offered, and he passed it by? The tavern door banged and O’Brien frowned at the words beneath his hand, resenting them as he resented all good things that he’d hoped for and never received.

  The mail coach had come to a river, and Laura clenched her teeth in anticipation of what was to come. She had lost count of the rivers and streams they had crossed, though she’d managed to keep track of the days—twenty-three since they’d started down the Santa Fé Trail from Independence—as if the knowledge would help her should she have to find her way back to civilization.

  “Water’s high,” said her uncle, leaning across his neighbor to peer out of the window. “Don’t worry, my dear. The river bottom is solid rock here. No fear of getting stuck again.”

  Laura nodded, unable to speak. A dull ache filled her head. She had, in the past few days, begun to wonder if she would die, and if that would be easier than to endure the rest of the journey.

  The elegant wooden mantel clock in her lap clanked softly as the coach started down the river bank. Laura held it close, lifting it to soften the impact of the bumps. Sometimes she felt it as if preserving her father’s clock was the only reason for her continued existence. It was all she had left of him, save for a small daguerrotype framed in silver.

  She found old nursery songs running through her mind, tunes she hadn’t thought of since her mother had died so many years ago. Father had comforted her then. Now she had no one to turn to, except the uncle whom she had never met until he had greeted her train in St. Louis. She glanced at him, still craning to see out of the window.

  Wallace Howland was a man of few graces. He did not, as Laura had hoped he might, resemble her departed father, having neither the fineness of form nor the refinement of mind that had characterized his elder brother. Laura did not wish to appear ungrateful, and so she strove to conceal her disappointment.

  The coach tilted forward to enter the water, and Laura pressed her heels against floor to keep from sliding off the bench. The front wheels hit bottom, and with a splash they were into the river and starting across. Shouts and another splash drifted back over the noise of the coach and the water; the second coach, full of mail and provisions, had followed them into the river. The guards on the roof over Laura’s head whooped as they neared the bank, and the driver snapped his whip at the mules. The coach bumped, tipped back, leaned crazily toward the water for a heart-stopping moment, then groaned and lurched its way up the bank, to finally rumble to a stop.

  Laura closed her eyes and let out her breath in a sigh. The shouting began anew, and she didn’t need to hear the words to know what the argument was about. The sergeant in charge of the military escort wanted to halt again to let the animals graze and rest, and the coachmen wanted to press on to the next stage stop. They were making poor time, but the mules were tired; the same teams had pulled the coaches and the military escort’s wagon all the way from Fort Larned. In the end, a halt was called.

  As the door was pulled open, Laura blinked at the bright sun—so much more intense than in Boston—and drew her black veil over her face. The other passengers—all men—got out first, leaving Laura her choice of privacy in the coach or a walk in the sunshine. No words were spoken; by now it was all habit. In three weeks the travelers had exhausted their small talk, and now merely tolerated one another as they tolerated the hardships of travel.

  Laura shaded her eyes with a hand and peered out of the window. The line of blue mountains in the west seemed no nearer. The plains were beginning to be broken up by long, flat, rock outcrops, rising slowly westward. The land still seemed empty, with not a green thing to be seen save the few shrubs and trees that clung to the river banks.

  Laura leaned in the corner of the bench seat and tried to sleep. She had learned to snatch what moments of rest she could get, but they were few. Even when the coach stopped for the night, even when a mattress on a dirt floor in a stage station had been offered (though it was some time since she’d had that luxury), her weary mind would not let her rest, taunting her with the past, haunting her with spectres of the future.

  Impossible to sleep. She gave up and left the coach to walk the cramps out of her legs. Her travelling hoops were too narrow for her black dress, and the hem was laden with dust from brushing along the ground. The veil kept out only some of the dust and sun, but it did shield her from the prying eyes of the soldiers in the escort.

  They had climbed out of their wagon and stood stretching, eight pairs of eyes following her, though the men kept a respectful distance. She glanced at their faces—hard faces—worn and weathered though not old. They were not like any of the soldiers she had known back in Boston.

  She had been to the State Encampment and seen dozens of eager recruits all in shining new uniforms, and had wished she were a man so she could join them. They were no more like these weary, dusty soldiers than were the old heros of the Mexican War—friends of her father—who had enlivened their parlor with tales of heroics. These soldiers did not look like heros. They only looked tired.

  The thought of home caused Laura’s throat to tighten, and she blinked several times to keep back sudden tears. She pushed away memories of the funeral, months ago now, though it seemed only yesterday. She had been left to settle her father’s affairs; not so difficult, as she had kept house for him since Mother’s death, but hard to bear in her grief. She had dealt with the letters, the agents, the sale of his meager belongings, the removal of her own few things from Church Street to a modest hotel, and the growing fear of being reduced to labor for her own survival.

  Then hope had arrived, in the form of a letter from Uncle Wallace in Santa Fé, offering to take her in. He was the the last of her immediate family, and she had written her grateful acceptance, said her goodbyes, and undertaken the long journey by train, steamboat, and now stagecoach. During that journey a war had begun, but Laura had no grief to spare for her tortured country. She had come to realize how much she had depended on her father, not only as a provider, but as a friend.

  Now, surrounded by strangers in a foreign country, Laura paced along the river bank hugging her father’s clock tight to her chest, fearing that if she ceased to move she would crumble altogether. Her uncle approached, and fell into step beside her.

  “Are you are tired, my poor child?” he asked. “May I take that clock for you?”

  “No, thank you,” said Laura. “It isn’t heavy.”

  “You’re a good girl,” said her uncle, to which Laura could think of no reply.

  He was, after all, a stranger, to all intents and purposes. Laura reminded herself that he had offered her a home, and had gone to great trouble and expense to meet her at Independence and accompany her on the last portion of the journey to Santa Fé. The thought of that city was her brightest hope. It would not be like Boston, she knew, but it was a city, with shops and hotels and people. She must be grateful.

  “Cheer up, my dear” he said. “We shall reach Fort Union tomorrow, most likely.”

  Laura nodded, and made an effort to smile.

  “Have I mentioned to you my young friend who is th
ere? Lieutenant Owens? A delightful young fellow,” her uncle went on without waiting for an answer. “Quite the gentleman. I have told him of you, and he is most anxious to meet you.”

  “I shall be happy to make his acquaintance,” Laura managed to say.

  Her uncle had mentioned Lieutenant Owens at least once every day since they’d left Independence, and she had begun, simply and irrationally, to hate the man. She hummed the tune that was foremost in her mind, a lullaby her mother had sung when she was small.

  Hushabye, don’t you cry—

  “Care for a little refresher?”

  Laura stopped, staring in astonishment at the flask her uncle proffered. It was uncapped and she could smell the bitter whiskey. It made her feel ill.

  “No, thank you,” she said, and continued walking.

  “All right, then,” Uncle Wallace called after her. “You can always change your mind.”

  When you awake, you shall have cake—

  “Board up,” called the driver, words Laura had come to dread. She turned to face the ordeal once more.

  The coach will be shadier, she told herself, looking for the best of the situation. As she walked toward it, the armed guard to whom the driver referred as “shotgun” began hitching up the team. The mules seemed hard, lean, as drained of life by this wasteland as Laura felt.

  —and all the pretty little horses.

  Hoofbeats penetrated Jamie’s awareness, making him lose track of the sums he was doing. He looked up, knowing what he would see through the window over Mr. Webber’s desk. Coming up the Camino Real was a company of cavalry.

  Jamie glanced at his employer, who was helping two ladies choose some calico, and quietly got up from the desk. He walked to the doorway of the general store to stand and watch the horsemen riding proudly up the street from the Military Plaza.

  They were lancers, each carrying a long spear with a small red pennant beneath its blade to drink the blood of the enemy. Each pennant bore a single white star, matching the Lone Star on the guidon carried by one of the horsemen.